1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a remote control receiver with an integrated remote control receiver circuit, wherein said integrated receiver circuit has an input designed to be directly connected to a light detector.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Most current remote control receivers comprise a light detector (e.g. a photo diode) for receiving the command signals, which light detector is connected to a signal processing circuit. This signal processing circuit amplifies and filters the received signal and often digitizes and even analyses the received commands. In order to achieve a desired reliability, this circuit tends to be very complicated. Therefore, it is usually part of an integrated circuit, a so called remote control IC. Such integrated circuits are offered by several manufacturers. They usually require only a few external components and have an input terminal, to which the light detector can be connected directly. An example for a receiver with such a circuit is e.g. given in "Toute l'Electronique", no.. 508, November 1985 (Paris, France) or can be found in the reference data sheets of the integrated receiver circuits.
Due to the integration of the most important circuits in a single component it is possible to provide cheap remote control receivers.
A disadvantage of the conventional systems is, however, their limited range. If the surrounding illumination is weak, the range is usually limited to not more than 10 to 20 meters if the sender is well pointed towards the receiver. If the surrounding illumination is strong, this range is reduced drastically.